Soul of Cinder

by Bree Barton

  But now Pilar sank onto a stool, dropped her head in her hands.

  “It’s my fault,” she said, words garbled against her palms. “I was so angry at Quin for betraying me. For being weak. I wanted to punish him for it. So I left him behind.”

  Mia had been more than ready to unleash all her pent-up anger and frustration. But this? Pilar being vulnerable? She had no idea how to respond.

  “I left him first,” Mia conceded. “I abandoned him in the Kaer when I stopped my heart. Abandoned all of you. I had planned to come back for him. I thought if I could find my mother and we neutralized the magic in the moonstone, maybe we could coax Angelyne back from the brink, and then I’d be able to save her, Quin, you—everyone.”

  “But you didn’t come back,” Pilar said.

  Again Mia heard Nell’s words.

  In saving them, you expect it to save you.

  “No,” she said. “I didn’t.”

  It struck her then, how much she was like her mother. Wynna had left her family behind. At first it was out of necessity. She’d been forced to stop her own heart to survive. But then, once she arrived in a far-off kingdom, she began to forget the old ties. She built a new life. Found a new love.

  Wynna could have come back to Glas Ddir. The Dujia of the river kingdom needed her. Her daughters needed her. But when Mia had asked her to come back and take responsibility, her mother had refused.

  And here was Mia. Refusing to go back to the river kingdom. Throwing herself at a woman in a far-off land, sure this would save her. Always the wild-eyed hope that this person, this love, would finally make her whole.

  The difference was that Mia’s beloved did not love her back.

  “Maybe Quin’s right.” Pilar stared at her hands. “About hating the three of us. He thinks we broke him. Maybe we did.”

  A torrent of memories swamped Mia’s mind. Every word Quin had ever spoken, from the beginning to the end. His icy formalities in the castle. His growing warmth in the Twisted Forest. She remembered the softness of their conversations on Refúj, their whispered intimacies in the river the night everything went wrong.

  “It’s my fault,” she said, her voice so quiet she could barely hear it. “Quin has lost everything because of me. His family. His autonomy. I enthralled him without meaning to. I led him out of the Kaer and into the forest, where he almost died. I killed his sister when I was trying to save her. I said I would come back for him. And then I didn’t. You’re right. I have been selfish.”

  “Then face the truth—and do something about it. It’s better than sitting around fondling a tree.”

  Mia fixed her with a penetrating gaze.

  “Every time I’ve tried to save someone, I’ve failed.”

  “You’re smart, Rose. Too smart for your own good sometimes. You could do so much more than you’re doing here. Be so much more. Do you remember what I told you in the Reflections?”

  “That you’d fight for me until I was strong enough to fight again.”

  “I think we’ve both been fighting our own battles—just in different ways. But each way was the opposite of what the other person needed. I needed to feel strong. Not sit around, talking endlessly about what happened to me.”

  Mia started to interrupt, but Pilar cut her off.

  “I’m not saying you were wrong. Or maybe I am saying that. But I was wrong, too. The thing you needed was to talk and feel connected. I couldn’t do that, either. The more you tried to engage with me, the more I fought it. I got angry. Shut down. I didn’t want to feel broken. Didn’t want to be your latest experiment, just another animal in the Curatorium you needed to fix.”

  Pilar stood. Cracked her knuckles, then her neck.

  “You’re right, Mia. I have sealed my heart off from you. I don’t want to do that anymore. I’m trying so hard not to. The truth is, I don’t know if Quin is beyond saving. But we have to try. And I say we do it together. As sisters.”

  She held out her hand.

  “Come with me?”

  Hot tears rushed to Mia’s eyes. She’d been waiting so long to hear those words.

  But now that they’d arrived, they landed all wrong.

  For the last seventeen years, Mia had diligently, painstakingly crafted her impeccable sense of self. Even the childhood game she’d played with Angelyne reflected it: she was Mia Rose, Lover of Science, Knower of All Things. But also—and perhaps more vital—she was Mia Rose, Protector of Sisters, Savior of Lost Souls.

  In a matter of minutes, Nell had deftly unraveled the threads of that delusion. Now the truth slid into Mia with brutal precision.

  She needed to be needed. She gravitated toward broken people because she herself was broken. She was no better than her Wound Man sketch, pierced in a dozen different places, doomed in a dozen different ways. What a mockery she’d made of herself, doddering around the Curatorium. How could she heal anyone else’s wounds when she could not even see her own?

  No wonder she destroyed the very people she tried to save.

  She knew nothing about love. Nothing about sisterhood. Her whole life had been a farce, a thin, gossamer skin wrapped around a shattered skeleton. She had failed. All the time she had spent breathing with Muri, chanting in the circle, caring for creatures in the Curatorium—meaningless. Expendable variables in an unsolvable equation.

  Mia Rose, Fixer of Damaged People, was unfixable.

  She would never be whole.

  The grief came so quickly it stole the breath from her lungs. The pain of her failure crushed her. She lay pinned beneath the enormity of it, powerless. Decimated by every hurt she’d ever felt, every loss she’d ever suffered. She wanted nothing more than to forget.

  And in that moment, she knew exactly where she was going.

  She met Pilar’s eyes. But she did not take her hand.

  “I’m not coming with you, Pilar. You’re on your own.”

  The change was immediate. Pilar yanked her arm back. Clenched her jaw. The pain in her sharp brown eyes was scorching.

  Mia could read her sister like a book. Pilar had tried to open her heart, thinking this would finally bridge the gap between them. She’d been wrong.

  “Fine. Don’t come. I’m better off alone anyway.”

  Pilar hugged her arms to her chest. A gesture Mia knew so well.

  “You’re right, Rose. You really do break everything you touch.”

  Chapter 27

  Only Light

  THE WALK THROUGH SHABEEKA was long. At night the Pearl Moon Festival was in full swing, revelers clogging the narrow passageways, vendors hawking their wares. The smells of smoked meats and raw fish were an assault to Mia’s senses. She could smell everything now, even though she no longer wanted to.

  On the shore, Mia stared up at the Bridge. It was bigger than it looked from her sfeera window, stretching on for an eternity. But when she squinted, she could make out the white smudge of island on the other side.

  A sense of peace poured through her. Once she’d made up her mind to go to Prisma, she’d felt an almost eerie serenity. As if she had always known she would end up at the Isle of Forgetting. It was only a matter of time.

  Mia had taken nothing with her. No bag, no possessions. She walked onto the Bridge freely, unburdened by her former life.

  At the apex, she stopped. Above her the cables were pulled taut, glimmering in the moonlight like the vertebrae of a giant silver spine. She stared over the edge. A shoal of melonfish swam beneath the bridge, chattering, illuminating the ocean with trembling orange light. She thought of the notebook the Shadowess had given her, now filled with dozens of Mia’s sketches—wounds and how to dress them, formulas for healing tinctures. She wouldn’t need any of it now.

  She fixed her gaze on Prisma. For just a moment, the fog cleared. Mia could see the tall fish trees, yellow fronds swaying in the breeze. The sand was pristine white: a pleasant balm after the endless jarring orange of Shabeeka. Everywhere she looked in Pembuk, she saw fire and scalding heat. It had se
emed so invigorating when she first arrived. So alive.

  But that was precisely the problem. To be alive was to hurt. To live was to be broken, failing the people you loved, failing yourself. Every child was born a blank slate on which other people inscribed their pain, until the child learned to inscribe her own. That legacy could not be undone. The markings were indelible.

  Except on Prisma. On the Isle of Forgetting, even the darkest marks could be erased.

  The ivory beach unfurled like a blank piece of parchment in the distance. Beckoning. A chance to rewrite all her previous mistakes.

  For a moment, Mia craned her neck to look back. She saw children skipping rocks on the shore of Shabeeka. Musicians and dancers strolled the streets for the festival. In the middle distance, the House of Shadows glinted in the starlight. She could make out a row of round glass windows, some glowing a warm rose, others black. One of them was hers.

  Her gaze dropped to her feet. She had stopped precisely at the zenith of the Bridge. Right foot on one side, left foot on the other. What was it Quin had said that day on the red balloon? We’re always in some liminal state, moving toward something or away from something else. That seemed so very long ago.

  A honeyed sweetness drifted through the air.

  She could still go back. Run after Pilar, beg her sister to take her to Glas Ddir. She could save Quin, or stop him; perhaps those two things really were one and the same. She could find her mother, accept her offer of a home and a family, travel to Luumia and invent herself anew. She could stay in the House of Shadows, licking her wounds, giving Nell the space she needed. Mia knew Lord Shadowess would welcome her back to the Curatorium with open arms. So would the Shadowess. Suffering is a kind of shadow, she’d say. It can reveal things to us we never would have seen if there were only light.

  Mia took a step toward Prisma.

  Funny how so much could be decided in a single step. She was no longer at the apex, suspended between worlds. She had transported herself both closer to the future and farther from the past.

  In the end, the choice was not difficult.

  She would forget them all.

  Act III

  Once upon a time, on an isle made of sand, a girl stopped plotting.

  Sand is a forgiving mistress.

  She molds herself to your whims,

  your craters and depressions,

  your pinnacles and peaks.

  Stomp your foot into her skin and she

  shapes every grain around you.

  The faithful holder of your prints.

  The keeper of your story.

  Ask a question and sand will echo.

  An echo is a kind of answer, no?

  Insofar as every ear wants to be

  pressed against its

  own

  mouth.

  Drinking words it knows already.

  My whole life I have been little.

  A speck so small

  no one

  sees

  or even cares.

  A grain of sand can rage against the ocean,

  but the ocean has the final word.

  Perhaps the sea is the forgiving mistress.

  Twice a day she sweeps over the shore,

  frees the sand from its memory.

  Every footprint,

  every violent echo,

  fades upon the tide.

  To forget is to forgive.

  To forgive is to forget.

  I suppose this is what I do now,

  on the warm white sands of Prisma.

  Write bad poetry.

  Soon I’ll forget that, too.

  Chapter 28

  The Last Drop

  IT WAS A GOOD thing Rose left. If she hadn’t, Pilar might’ve killed the girl herself.

  After their fight, she’d gone straight to the Gymnasia. Re-bloodied her knuckles. Thought about everything Mia said.

  The more Pilar replayed their conversation, the surer she felt that she was in the right. Instead of shutting down, she’d opened up. All those weeks of Mia trying to connect had finally worn her down. Either that or her time in the House had shifted something.

  She didn’t want to go back to the river kingdom, either. She liked training Stone and Shay. Liked the steady trickle of girls and boys who came to the Gymnasia. Liked hearing their stories, their fears, their dreams.

  But then she read Quin’s letter. She’d never felt so simultaneously relieved and horrified. Relieved to know Quin was alive—and horrified he was apparently still trying to kill them.

  She had searched her heart. Was she still pining for her former lover? No. She’d never been one for epic love stories, and this was most definitely not that. Their romance had run its course.

  What she felt was compassion. The kind she should’ve felt all along. Pilar knew what it was to suffer from the abuse of power. She and Quin were both survivors. If she could speak to that side of him, maybe she could pull him back from the brink.

  And if she couldn’t, so be it. She would do whatever she had to do to stop him. She refused to let him do to other people what had been done to him.

  It was up to Pilar and Mia to set things right. They were the only ones who could. So Pilar had left the Gymnasia, marched straight to Mia’s sfeera, and pounded on the door.

  “Rose? You awake?”

  Silence. She’d pounded harder.

  “Get up or I’m coming in.”

  She didn’t have to kick the door down. It was unlocked.

  The second Pilar stepped inside, she knew. There was a kind of emptiness she couldn’t put into words. Mia had stripped the linens off the bed. Stacked all her books. Left an orange melonfish notebook on her pillow, her wooden charm placed neatly on top.

  The truth struck with savage force. Rose had made her sfeera easier for someone to clean out.

  Pilar clutched the charm in her fist. She stumbled back into the hallway, stunned.

  Mia had left her. She had gone to Prisma.

  There was no note.

  Pilar sprinted all the way to the Bridge. She kept seeing Mia everywhere—in a crowded street, stooped over a food stall, standing on the shore. But every time she spun a new redhead around, she found herself peering into a face she didn’t know.

  She ran onto the Bridge. The moon made everything too bright. Pilar shielded her eyes.

  There. At the other end she saw Mia. A tiny red-haired speck moving toward the island.

  Pilar yelled. Waved her arms. Ran faster. The Bridge was much longer than it looked. She soared past the middle, then the three-quarter mark. She was so close to the end. Heart exploding. Lungs shrieking. She doubled over, gasping for air.

  “Mia!” she screamed. Pilar held up the tree charm, one last desperate attempt. “MIA!”

  She watched her sister disappear into the white fog.

  Rose never once looked back.

  Pilar sank. Her kneecaps slammed into hard metal. She’d have bruises in the morning, no doubt. She hugged her chest, pulse crashing in her ears.

  She knew she should go straight to the Shadowess. Tell her what had happened. Nell, too. Beg them to bring Mia back.

  But in her heart, she knew their answer. The leaders at the House were happy to counsel people before they went to the Isle of Forgetting. Once they’d crossed the Bridge? There was no turning back.

  Pilar walked back to the House alone. Angry. So angry.

  She had opened herself up to Mia.

  And Mia had left.

  The Orkhestra was pitch-black. How could anyone see their instruments? Pilar knocked down a music stand as she stumbled through the room. Swore. Flicked the cap off the flask of rai rouj she’d drunk half of in the Swallow—and downed the rest in one gulp.

  The spirits burned. She’d missed that punch to the throat. She remembered giving Rose her first nip of rai rouj on Refúj. The girl had taken one sip and nearly fallen on her ass.

  Did Mia remember that moment?

  Didn’t matter. If she did, she
wouldn’t for long.

  The tears raged behind Pilar’s eyes. She fought them back. She wanted to be angry, stay angry, but she kept smacking up against her own guilt. Had she pushed Mia over the edge?

  Pilar’s last words ripped through her bleary brain.

  You really do break everything you touch.

  She didn’t want to think anymore. She had to occupy her hands—and not by punching. She needed something that would make her feel not so alone.

  She needed a violin.

  “Pil?”

  She squinted into the dark. Saw the silhouette of wiry black hair. Groaned.

  “Why are you here, Stone?”

  “I thought you might be up late, sparring. When you weren’t in the Gymnasia I looked a little farther afield. Not in a million years would I have thought I’d find you here.”

  Pilar swept her arm across the empty chairs and music stands.

  “Come in! Private concert. Now if I could just find the violins.”

  “Are you . . . drunk?”

  “Maybe a little.” She moved forward and knocked over a music stand, which knocked into another. A whole row went down like dominoes.

  “Maybe a lot.” Stone pointed to a line of wooden cabinets. “They keep the instruments in there so they’re not exposed to direct sunlight.”

  Pilar staggered toward the cabinets, still holding the empty flask. She stared at it.

  “How did this get here?” she slurred.

  “I’m guessing you put it there. Is something wrong, Pilar?”

  “What could possibly be wrong in the House of Shadows? Everyone here is so happy!”

  “You don’t seem happy.”

  “Really? Because I’m breathing through my belly! I can hum, too. Watch.”

  She threw back her head and crowed like a dying rooster.

  Stone didn’t crack a grin.

  So he wasn’t amused. Fine. Pilar shrugged and swung the cabinet open.

  “Listen, Pil . . . now might not be the best time, but I was wondering . . .”

  “You call this a violin?”

  She pulled out the closest instrument and brandished it overhead.

  “No,” Stone said. “I call that a piccolo.”